Carla and I had Friday off work, so we got tickets to see the musical "Chicago" at the Cambridge Theatre, central London. Musical theatre is a growing interest of ours, and as we had both enjoyed the 2002 film version of this long running show, we thought it would be great to see it on the stage. It certainly did not disappoint! The show was really fun to see. The vocal performances were excellent and the dancing top notch from all the cast. Tony Hadley plays the role of Billy Flynn, Chicago's top sleazy lawyer. He was brilliant, but I've always liked his voice from his Spandau Ballet days. The two leading ladies were excellent as well. The songs are the stars of course and they are simply great. Highlights included "All That Jazz", " Razzle Dazzle", "Cell Block Tango" and "We both Reached for the Gun".
I think the show is definitely better than 'Wicked!', which we saw last November: the lyrics of the songs are superior and are more 'show classic' and less 'pop' in tone. It also has a dark feel to it, which really interests me, not surprising as it came from the same team behind "Cabaret" (Bob Fosse etc).
After the show finished we headed on up to Milton Keynes to stay with Mark. It was his birthday that weekend so people were congregating there to celebrate. Another friend of ours, Jane, was already there. They were kind enough to meet us at the railway station (in the rain) and after the hugs and hellos; we caught the bus up into the city centre to do some food shopping at Sainsbury's. Alas...no PG tips monkeys in stock! (see earlier post). When we got back to his house in the suburbs, we had a nice little meal and watched some of the newer "Battlestar Galactica" series on DVD. I also gave him his Darth Vader birthday card (which went nicely with his Anakin Skywalker one somebody had got him!)
The next morning we had a slow lazy start. We had short walk around Furzton Lake, which is in the park at the end of Mark's road. The large open green area and lake is pretty in a 'new man-made' kind of way. Mark informed us that the homes around the lake are quite expensive, so I suppose they are all owned by "city" types and the successful dot.com lot. It was lovely to see the a large variety of waterfowl, and seeing some geese having a bit of an argument was sooo funny! Nice walk as the sun was shining but it was soooo windy!
When we got back to Mark's place, some other pals turned up (Tim and Sharon) and after the obligatory cup of tea, we all walked to Bletchley Park museum. There we met up with some other pals (Jamie, Theresa and Joe) and we spent the afternoon there looking around. The museum is excellent and fascinating. It mainly covers the part played by the code breakers of the 2nd World War: the 'Enigma' machine and all that. There are also other mini museums/exhibits that cover such things as cinema projection technology, old toy trains and toy collections, and life in the early part of the 20th century. I particularly loved seeing the old toys and packaging materials! The mansion itself is an interesting example of varied architecture, having been built from different design influences. Shame we couldn't see more of the interior. (Pic is of us with the giant goose statue at the museum!)
We had had a little while back at Mark's place, then said our good-byes and made our way home by rail. We got home and had a lovely dinner while watching the latest monsters of the week (killer Do-dos this time!) in Episode 4 of "Primeval".
Today (Sunday) was rainy all day. Ugh. We did venture out for a few essential groceries and buy the film version of "Chicago" at HMV, which we watched over lunch. Fantastic!
